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Massive Oil Deposit Discovered in Arctic Region

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File photo: oil rig.

Norway’s Statoil said Monday it has discovered a large oil reserve in the Barents Sea, its second major oil find in the Arctic region in less than a year.

The state-controlled oil company said a well drilled in the Havis prospect in the Barents Sea proved both oil and gas at an estimated volume of between 200 million and 300 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents.

Last April, Statoil said it had discovered between 150 million-250 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalents in the nearby Skrugard prospect.

The company has received a huge boost to its reserves in the past year. In August, it announced the biggest find in the Norwegian continental shelf in 30 years with a massive discovery of 500 million to 1.2 billion barrels of oil in the North Sea.

The company’s shares rose by 1.2 percent to 157.3 Norwegian kroner ($26.0) in early trading Monday.

The world’s seventh-largest oil exporter may slow a decade-long slump in production after recent success from the Arctic to the North Sea, including the world’s largest offshore find last year, according to Bloomberg.

“This means a lot to the Barents region,” Carl Christian Bachke, an analyst at RS Platou Markets in Oslo, told Bloomberg. “It will open up a lot of new activity in the area.”

Statoil has been exploring in the Barents Sea for more than 30 years and said the find proves that persistence and long-term thinking bear fruit.

“Havis is our second high impact oil discovery in the Barents Sea in nine months,” Statoil CEO Helge Lund said. “The discovery’s volume and reservoir properties make it Skrugard’s twin. Skrugard and Havis open up a new petroleum province in the North.”

Statoil ASA is the operator of Havis and Skrugard, with an ownership share of 50 percent. The license partners are Eni Norge AS with 30 percent and Petoro AS with 20 percent.

“We are about to realize the Barents Sea as a core area on the Norwegian continental shelf,” said Erik Strand Tellefsen, Statoil’s vice president for the Skrugard development.